Oakland: Creating A Lie

The SF Chronicle story accompanying the above headline goes on to note that "three-quarters of the 78 people arrested in Thursday's riot in Oakland came from outside the city." It makes no mention of where the people came from or what they were arrested for. Of course, the owner of Grace Beauty Supply hints at a different story when she is quoted in the same article as, "they were familiar with the store. They knew what they wanted."
The bullshit article does mention that some arrests were for "suspicion of such crimes as resisting arrest, burglary, vandalism and assaulting a police officer." I would like to see what kind of convictions, if any, come out of that.

San Joe's Mercury News start off their article with "OAKLAND -- The agitators have struck again."

Down south, The LA Times have the headline, 'Anarchists' clash with Oakland police." Then the article doesn't even try to explain when and where any anarchists battled with police. They do provide this photo under the headline:


The whole "outside agitator" line put forth by The City of Oakland, OPD, and their collaborators is used to deny the popular support of insurrection in the face of a killer cop and the state apparatus that has protected him.
Even if people came from outside of Oakland, so what?! Are people in neighboring cities such as Alameda, Berkeley, or San Leandro not allowed to be angry? Let's not forget, it was the non-profits and the City who encouraged everyone to come "peacefully" voice our feelings/concerns.

The media characterized "looters" as obviously "out-of-town anarchists" while showing groups of Black teenagers. Of course, Black teenagers CAN be anarchists but it seemed to fly in the face of the obviously racialized definition the city and pig collaborators came up with for who Oakland was in the lead up to a Mehserle verdict.

The police didn't even attempt to battle those who broke storefront windows or stole goods. They knew that scenes of militarized pigs beating young Black men would not look good. They stuck to cordoning off city blocks and citing "peaceful" protestors who didn't leave. Some of those cops were from out-of-town. I guess they were the outside agitators.